Adding another layer are the unsmiling, black-suited government security men - men with a job to do and a firm grip on the words "no" and "impossible".

They are watching over the visit on Friday of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Along with Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, President Erdogan is attending a memorial service to fallen Turk heroes at the monolithic Canakkale Martyrs Memorial.

The steel security curtain extends far beyond the national park where the famous Gallipoli cemeteries are: the nearby ferry port towns of Eceabat and Kilitbahir are in complete lockdown.

Police cars are on every corner, armed troops walk the streets and watch from rooftops. Fighter planes scream past high overhead.

When the patriotic bikers of the Anatolian Tigers Motorcycle Club thunder into Eceabat, Turkish flags waving, they silence their thundering Harleys and wait when they hit the police roadblock.

Australian Federal Police officers have been on the ground in Turkey for months, while a no-fly zone is in place and all non-naval vessels will be stopped from approaching the coast.

The Australian and Kiwi tourists travelling onto the peninsula on Friday ahead of the Anzac Day dawn service will face multiple separate security checks before they take their seats in the three-sided Australian Commemorative Site above North Beach.

The site was quiet in the early afternoon, with security forces sweeping through on a final check before hundreds of buses swing in with their excited pilgrim passengers.

By 4am there will be no space to spare as people wait shoulder-to-shoulder in freezing cold for the 5.30am service.

Security has been a huge issue for this Anzac event, believed to be the largest gathering of English-speaking people in a non English-speaking country anywhere in the world.

At every news conference leading up to Anzac Day, media have asked about security concerns.

Out among the battlefield cemeteries, feelings have been mixed: one woman says she feels completely safe, another man says he hid a story about recent terror attacks in Istanbul from his wife to stop her worrying.

Australia's Gallipoli services director Tim Evans has repeatedly said the peninsula will be one of the safest places to be in Turkey on Anzac Day.

When people have their hearts and minds fixed firmly on the dawn service, it's hoped no one will have to notice the machinery that has made all this possible.